Covid-19: Social Inequalities and Human Possibilities

This book demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic has had an unequal impact on individuals, communities, and countries as a result of social inequalities, such as economic development, social class, race, and access to health care and education. It concludes with insights into how society can (re-)build a brighter post-COVID-19 world.

J. Michael Ryan is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. Dr. Ryan was previously a researcher for the TRANSRIGHTS Project at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and has taught courses at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Ecuador and the University of Maryland, USA. Before returning to academia, Dr. Ryan worked as a research methodologist at the National Center for Health Statistics in Washington, DC. His research interests include social scientific responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, trans identity, and gender and sexualities. He is the editor of COVID-19: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions (Routledge 2021), COVID-19: Social Consequences and Cultural Adaptations (Routledge 2021), Trans Lives in a Globalizing World: Rights, Identities, and Politics (Routledge 2020), and Core Concepts in Sociology (Wiley 2019). He is also the editor of Routledge's TheCOVID-19 Pandemic series. Serena Nanda is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, USA. Her research interests include the hijras, gender and sexuality, love and marriage, legal pluralism, museum studies, social science teaching, and the impact of COVID-19. Her books include Love and Marriage: Cultural Diversity in a Changing World (Waveland Press 2019), Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations (Waveland Press 2014) and Neither Man nor Woman: the Hijras of India (Wadsworth Publishing 1998), which won the 1990 Ruth Benedict Prize. She is also co-author of Cultural Anthropology (Sage 2019) and Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Sage 2021), and a contributor to COVID-19: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions (Routledge 2021).

1. Introduction to a global pandemic 2.Pandemic numbers, consequences, and contradictions 3. The haves and never hads 4. Global inequities: a tale of two pandemics 5. Citizenship, migration, and legal belonging 6. Vulnerable and minority populations 7. Culture counts 8. To learn or not to learn? 9. Digital inequalities: exacerbating the divide 10. Politics and ideologies 11. Grey skies are gonna clear up? 12. Vaccines: are we really all in this together? 13. (Re-)building a post-pandemic world